Having practiced medicine for over 20 years now, Dr. Sandeep Jain has witnessed firsthand how the increasing predominance of electronic medical records has lowered the amount and damaged the quality of communication that occurs between doctors and patients and between members of a patient’s health care team. He argues that electronic medical record keeping has not only made communication across systems impossible by limiting doctors to their organizations or hospitals but also subtracted from the patient experience by forcing providers to document excess data rather than simply listen to the patient. The problem is only worsened by the fact that doctors are monetarily incentivized to document through this system in a particular manner.

“Important, essential insight becomes a needle in a haystack, and doctors have to hide needles of information in a lot of hay because that’s how they make their own hay…money,” says Dr. Jain. But what if the needles could be shared without the hay and across systems so that a patient’s entire care team could be on the same page at the touch of a button? These were the ideas that compelled him to found ListenMD, a secure, HIPPA-compliant app that allows patients and every member of their treating team to communicate with one another in real time, sharing those essential bits of information that would otherwise get buried in the excess. The app also allows providers to delay less important messages and prioritize urgent ones, which keeps disturbances to a minimum and lessens the barrage of data doctors already deal with.

There are many other features and perks of the app designed to simplify, streamline, and improve patient care. Visit Listenmd.com for more information and download the app to try it for yourself.